'I believe it takes a village to raise a startup': How I went from a Northern Ireland butcher's shop to helping Ed Sheeran’s guitar cross borders

I never set out to build a technology company. In fact, if you had asked me when I left school what I would be doing today, I would probably have told you I’d be a butcher.

My father was a butcher, just as his father and sister had been before him, and I went straight into the family business in Lurgan. I learnt the trade from the farm gate to the counter. It was simply what we did.

Then came the BSE crisis in the 1990s.

It was a difficult time for the red meat industry and, for the first time, I began to question whether the family business had a long-term future. I didn’t have a grand plan for what would come next, but I had always been interested in computers. My parents bought me a Commodore 64 for Christmas and I started teaching myself how to use it. I even wrote a programme for a video rental shop as part of my O-level project. At the time, it was just something I enjoyed. Looking back, it was probably the first sign that there was another path available to me.

That path eventually led to ubloquity, the Northern Ireland-based company I founded and now run. We use blockchain technology to give physical products a verifiable digital identity, allowing their provenance, certification and history to be securely recorded and accessed.

My background in secure communications and cryptology gave me an interest in how information can be protected and trusted. I also had the opportunity to study under Professor Chris Elliott at Queen’s University Belfast, whose work on food supply chain integrity had a huge influence on how I thought about the industry.

When blockchain emerged, I started to see its potential to remove some of the friction and uncertainty from international trade.

Brexit and the introduction of the Windsor Framework gave us a very real opportunity to test that thinking. In 2020, we pitched our technology to UK, EU and Northern Ireland officials and were given the chance to demonstrate what it could do.

This was during the pandemic, so we certainly didn’t pick the easiest time to test a new technology. I remember telling my wife we were going on a cruise. When she asked where, I said Liverpool.

We drove from Belfast, took the ferry, travelled through Wales, Birmingham and Scotland and then returned to Belfast — around 1,300 miles in 24 hours. We were testing technology that securely linked shipment information to a blockchain and allowed the relevant authorities to access the information in real time.

It worked.

We went on to formally register ubloquity in February 2021 and were generating revenue by October that year. Since then, we’ve continued to develop the technology and find new applications for it.

One of my favourite examples involves something much smaller than a lorry full of goods — a guitar.

We worked with George and Aaron Lowden of Lowden Guitars to give their instruments a digital identity. A chip embedded in the guitar’s headstock can connect the instrument to information about its materials, craftsmanship and CITES certification.

The idea became particularly relevant when a guitar belonging to one of Lowden's most prominent players (Ed Sheeran) was almost detained at a border because its certification wasn’t immediately available with the instrument. With our technology, the guitar can effectively carry its own story with it.

For me, though, building ubloquity has been about more than technology. I’ve had to learn some difficult lessons about myself along the way.

I’ve put my family through the wringer because of my obsession with solving problems and my inability to switch off. My wife has been an absolute saint, and my children have told me that I needed to sort myself out.

One of the biggest lessons has been learning to listen. I believe it takes a village to raise a startup. I’ve deliberately surrounded myself with people who are prepared to challenge me, rather than simply tell me what I want to hear. Some of the most uncomfortable conversations I’ve had have ultimately led to the biggest growth.

The irony is that some of those same things were being said to me at home, and I didn’t always listen. When someone on my advisory board eventually told me the same thing, it landed differently. I realised I needed to value the people closest to me as much as the people around the business.

If there is one thing I would say to anyone starting a business, it is that you don’t have to do it alone. Build your village. Find people who will challenge you, protect your health and remind you that you are more than the business you are building.

I started out behind a butcher’s counter. Today I’m building a technology company. The journey has been anything but straightforward, but perhaps that’s the point.